Ukrainan konflikti/sota

Tiedoksi että Military Balance 2024 julkaistaan tänään, joten odotettavissa siihen liittyviä twiittejä lähipäivinä.

https://www.iiss.org/en/publications/the-military-balance/

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Nämä julkaisut ovat kohdanneet aina kritiikkiä numeroidensa osalta, mutta silti kiehtovaa nähdä, millainen heidän tuorein arvionsa on. HUOM: vaikka julkaisu tapahtuu 13.2.2024 niin varsinainen numeroiden kerääminen päättyi loppuvuonna 2023, olikohan lokakuun loppu takaraja (jos en muista väärin). Täten tämän julkaisun numerot edustavat tilannetta vuoden 2023 loppupuolella eivätkä vuonna 2024, kuten julkaisun nimestä voisi kuvitella.

Sikäli kun julkaisu sattuu tippumaan minun syliin jossain vaiheessa, tulen päivittämään omat taulukkoni (ne pari joihin olen kerännyt näiden julkaisujen numeroita). Laitan ne sitten jakoon tänne, tosin vaikea luvata milloin.

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MUOKKAUS: tällainen tuli jo vastaan:

The Military Balance is a mine of knowledge and currently probably the only source that, using the same methodology, can give one of the pictures of what is happening in the Russian Armed Forces

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Kuvan tekstien konekäännös, Google Lens:

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https://twitter.com/x/status/1757419985280844000
 
Viimeksi muokattu:
Michael Kofman kirjoitti näin:

Jack rightly points out that it is possible to disrupt Russian planning, and that Russia could face considerable uncertainty about the military means available relative to political aims in 2025-2026, if the right decisions are made in 2024.

Will add, for anyone interested in a long read on attrition, its role in this war, and how to think about attrition in general, check out:

https://www.iiss.org/online-analysis/survival-online/2024/01/making-attrition-work-a-viable-theory-of-victory-for-ukraine

https://twitter.com/x/status/1757422626891259969

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Lainaan viitatun artikkelin tekstin spoilerin taakse jos joku haluaa lukea, kirjoittaja on Franz-Stefan Gady (en muista, oliko tämä täällä jo aikaisemmin - artikkeli julkaistu 9.2.2024):

9th February 2024

Making Attrition Work: A Viable Theory of Victory for Ukraine​

The most effective way for Ukraine to rebuild its advantage is to mount an effective defence in depth, which will reduce Ukraine’s losses and ammunition requirements.

9th February 2024

Making Attrition Work: A Viable Theory of Victory for Ukraine​

The most effective way for Ukraine to rebuild its advantage is to mount an effective defence in depth, which will reduce Ukraine’s losses and ammunition requirements.

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As the Russia–Ukraine war enters its third year, Ukraine faces a daunting task: how to restore its military advantage. The 2023 summer offensive, which dragged into autumn, was unsuccessful. Planning for the offensive appears to have been overly optimistic and poorly connected to how the Ukrainian armed forces actually fight, despite numerous analyses warning that the operation would prove costly and difficult, and that manoeuvre warfare was unlikely to attain a quick breakthrough against a well-prepared defence.

Conditions are not propitious for another major ground offensive in 2024. Our observations during field trips to Ukraine over the past year indicate that, to maximise Ukraine’s chances of eventual victory, Western countries need to recognise that the driving engine of Ukraine’s effectiveness has been a destruction-centred approach, resulting in high levels of attrition – that is, reducing an enemy’s capacity to fight by inflicting higher losses in personnel and materiel than one’s own side is suffering, which privileges firepower over mobility and direct attack or prepared defence over flanking action. Attempts at manoeuvre against a prepared defence have consistently floundered, especially in the absence of a decisive force advantage. While manoeuvre is still relevant on the battlefield, it will need a lot of help from attrition to bear fruit.

The West should focus on resourcing Ukraine’s ability to establish a decisive advantage in fires – meaning, typically, tube and rocket artillery, battlefield strike drones, long-range precision-strike systems and support by tactical aviation. No less important, the West needs to help Ukraine scale its capacity to employ units so that it can exploit that advantage in offensive operations. Western countries should also help Ukraine ramp up industrial production of those capabilities that provide the greatest advantages in an attritional war. The West will need to be appreciative of Ukrainian force structure and military culture, as well as the challenges posed by an increasingly mobilised military, which means avoiding the temptation to try to convert the Ukrainian military to a more Western, manoeuvre-centred way of fighting.

A war of attrition​

The more we know about the history of this war, the clearer it becomes how much was contingent, and how little was in fact overdetermined. Russia’s initial invasion was a high-risk operation, premised on the assumption that a long war could be avoided through the combination of a subversion campaign and a decisive decapitation strike against the Ukrainian government. In essence, the Russian concept of operations was driven by political assumptions, and therefore involved the use of forces in a manner that did not reflect how the Russian military trains and organises to fight in larger-scale combat operations. The invasion instead assumed that Russian forces could paralyse Ukrainian decision-making, isolate Ukraine’s armed formations and quickly advance across the vast country without meeting sustained resistance. The plans and objectives were also kept secret from the Russian troops until the final days or hours, leaving them materially and psychologically unready for a major campaign.

The first few days saw a confluence of events. Ukrainian units deployed on short notice, encountering streaming columns of Russian forces that were trying to meet compressed timetables. The decisive factor in many of these battles was not Western-provided weaponry but rather artillery. Russian forces were dispersed, unable to mass as they attempted to rapidly advance along divergent routes, and at a firepower disadvantage despite having overall superiority in fires. The Russian invasion force was brittle, consisting of perhaps 150,000 troops, with a third of it composed of mobilised personnel from the Luhansk and Donetsk people’s republics, and auxiliaries from RosGvardia, Russia’s National Guard.

Following a series of defeats, Russian forces regrouped and pursued a campaign in the Donbas, offsetting a deficit in personnel with an artillery fire advantage of 12:1. They fired an average of 20,000 shells per day during this time period, and likely averaged 15,000 over the course of 2022. Ukrainian casualties rose as Ukrainian forces were outgunned and ran low on ammunition. At this stage, Western assistance became crucial. Various types of tube artillery and long-range precision-strike systems entered the war. Most importantly, Western ammunition enabled Ukraine to sustain defensive fire so as to exhaust the Russian offensive in the Donbas and conduct localised counter-offensives to maintain pressure. Although Russia’s sieges of Mariupol and Severodonetsk were ultimately successful, Russian forces paid a steep price. The decisive factor in the Russian campaign was artillery firepower, which allowed the Russian military to establish localised advantages in the correlation of forces, despite being disadvantaged in personnel overall.

Ukraine then retook the initiative, launching two major offensives of its own in late summer and autumn 2022. Attrition worked to its advantage. Ukraine had mobilised and substantially expanded the size of its forces, whereas Russia was trying to fight the war at peacetime strength. Russia lacked the forces to stabilise a front stretching more than 1,600 kilometres. In Kharkiv, Russia had only a thinly manned line with an incohesive mixture of units. The bulk of those units were the remnants of the Western Group of Forces, in some places at 25% strength, with low morale due to desertions. Ukrainian forces broke through at Kharkiv, leading to a Russian rout. But the decisive factor was attrition, which forced the Russian military to choose between defending Kherson and reinforcing Kharkiv.

The Russian military deployed airborne units in Kherson, prioritising that region with a relatively well-prepared defence. The initial Ukrainian offensive was unsuccessful, prompting the replacement of the commander in charge of the operation. Entrenched behind multiple lines peppered with minefields, Russian units held in September, yielding little territory. The geometry of the battlefield was highly favourable to Ukraine, with Russian units separated from their logistical-support network by the Dnipro River. Months of High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) strikes had further reduced the Russian supply line to one bridge across the Kakhovka Dam and a network of ferries. Although Russian forces contained a renewed Ukrainian offensive in October, Moscow was compelled to retreat in order to preserve the force, as the attritional battle strongly favoured Ukraine.

Kherson was a portent of the challenge to come in the Ukrainian counter-offensive of 2023. Ukraine struggled to break through a prepared defence. Months of HIMARS strikes constrained Russian logistics, but they did not enable a breakthrough, and Russian forces were ultimately able to withdraw. They were at their weakest point over the winter, but the Ukrainian army was also in no condition to press the advantage. Having run through mobilised personnel from Luhansk and Donetsk, Moscow was forced to mobilise another 300,000 men, which served to stabilise their lines. Meanwhile, a grinding battle at Bakhmut, led by the Wagner Group, turned into a bloody and politically symbolic fight. Wagner eventually captured Bakhmut in May due to three factors: the Russian airborne held their flanks to prevent counter-attacks; Russian commanders had access to a large supply of convicts from the Russian prison system to use as assault infantry; and most importantly Russia enjoyed a fires advantage of 5:1 for much of the battle. Both sides thought that attrition favoured them.

Based on our research, Ukraine enjoyed a favourable loss ratio over Russia of up to 1:4 in total casualties during the nine-month battle, but the Russian forces that were fighting as part of Wagner were likely 70% convicts. Bakhmut thus immersed Ukrainian units in a fight in which Ukraine had the advantage on the basis of the attrition ratio, but which would pit its more experienced and valuable soldiers against Russia’s relatively expendable ones. The city itself had little strategic value. Wagner was particularly effective in urban terrain owing to its ruthless employment of expendable assault infantry. As the battle dragged on, the rest of the Russian military used the time to dig in, entrenching and laying down minefields across much of the southern and northern fronts. Buoyed by mobilisation, the Russian military launched its own winter offensive in late January by way of a series of localised attacks across a broad front.

This effort proved unsuccessful because the Russian forces were unable to achieve a sufficient advantage to break through, the force quality being too low to coordinate attacks in large formations. Many of the attacks were undertaken by platoon-sized units, which quickly drew Ukrainian fire and were defeated. The fires advantage Russian forces enjoyed in 2022 also started to deteriorate. This was not due primarily to HIMARS strikes, which forced a reorganisation of the Russian logistical system, but rather to the fact that Russia lacked the ammunition reserves to sustain the volume of fire reached in 2022. Those deficits began to force doctrinal adaptation in the Russian military, with greater emphasis on strike drones and more precise types of munitions.

This brief, circumscribed account does not explore the air war or maritime operations, but it does highlight the importance of force management, terrain and establishing a fires advantage, and the struggle by both sides to effectively employ their forces in offensive operations. With the exception of an initial manoeuvre-and-strike phase, which failed for conceptual and political reasons, the war has been characterised by attritional fighting and set-piece battles. In 2022, Ukraine was able to make effective use of attrition and exploit the structural problems in the Russian war effort. In 2023, it was not able to repeat the success of 2022, though Russia too has failed to make any significant gains on the ground.

Ukraine’s 2023 offensive​

Ukraine’s offensive was freighted with unrealistic expectations, but the fact remains that summer 2023 presented a good opportunity to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia. Russian forces were low on ammunition and lacked offensive potential. It was reasonable to think that Ukraine could establish an advantage in artillery fire, and the risk of a Russian counter-offensive was low. Western support, which has been essential to Ukraine’s war effort, was also likely to peak in summer 2023. The United States was burning through its stockpile of ammunition, while European states had failed to ramp up munitions production in 2022 and were just beginning to make the required investments, with lacklustre results. With elections looming in 2024, the political headwinds in Western capitals also suggested that funding to support Ukraine would decline following this operation. The US borrowed ammunition from South Korea, and other Western countries made efforts to contribute as part of a crash train-and-equip programme for Ukrainian forces. All told, the West trained and equipped nine brigades for the offensive. Ukraine would field several additional brigades from the armed forces and national guard, organised under two corps, and a reserve task force.

Ukraine had no risk-free options, but its strategy incorporated several choices and trade-offs, some of which compounded risk. Newly trained brigades, with just a few months of training, would take the lead in the assault, while more experienced units were kept fighting at Bakhmut. Ukraine also split its forces and artillery along three axes – Bakhmut, Velyka Novosilka and Tokmak – in hopes of pinning down Russian forces. Essentially, there were three offensives, which would pressure Russian forces such that they could not redeploy forces to one front without weakening another. In retrospect, the value of a prepared defence was underestimated, and Ukrainian forces could not attain the requisite advantage to break through along any of the operational directions selected. Western countries provided long-range air-launched cruise missiles in advance of the operation, but these capabilities did not prove decisive.

Whether Ukraine had sufficient breaching equipment, mine-clearing assets and air defence is still debated. But the more salient fact is that mobilisation had helped refill personnel levels within the Russian military and yielded more than 70 additional motor-rifle regiments, among other units. Consequently, Russian force density was much higher relative to terrain held. Furthermore, Russian engineering brigades prepared defences with digging machines and cement, using bunkers and towns as strong points. In the south, along the Orikhiv–Tokmak axis, the Russian military established multiple defensive lines and held the high ground. Russian units focused on manning the first line of defence and conducted counter-attacks to prevent Ukrainian forces from gathering momentum. The challenge to Ukraine – involving an established defence, a high force-density-to-terrain ratio and unfavourable geometry – was much greater than it had been in Kherson. In terms of the condition of Russian forces, the situation was practically the opposite of the one that had prevailed in Kharkiv during Ukraine’s breakthrough in September 2022.

The initial Ukrainian breaching effort in June failed. New units made common mistakes with respect to planning, coordinating artillery fire with assaults, orienting at night and employing breaching equipment, and in a few cases had engaged in unfortunate friendly-fire incidents early in the attack. Moreover, Ukrainian brigades could generate at most a few reinforced companies on the offence, backed by artillery. This meant that a brigade-level attack was in practice two reinforced companies advancing, with perhaps one in reserve. Ukraine was deploying combat power onto the battlefield in small packets, unable to coordinate formations at larger scale. Western equipment helped save lives, and proved much more survivable than comparable Russian kit, but by itself it was hardly a game-changer. In fact, more experienced units that stepped in after the failed initial assault, without Western equipment, performed better in both offensive and defensive tasks, demonstrating that while capability matters, experience and leadership also figure significantly into the equation. An advantage in artillery fire of between 3:2 and 2:1 yielded little better than overall parity, not enough to shock or suppress Russian formations, which anticipated and defended the main axis of the Ukrainian advance.

Subsequently, the Ukrainian military changed tactics, stressing dismounted-infantry attacks and seeking to attain an advantage in artillery fire sufficient to suppress Russian batteries. Much of the combat shifted to individual tree lines, typically at the level of platoons and occasionally that of reinforced companies. This approach reduced losses and preserved equipment, but did not lead to a breakthrough. Ukraine was able to breach the first Russian defensive line in the south but exhausted its offensive capacity by October without reaching its minimal objective of Tokmak. Ukraine also stuck with the overall strategy of splitting forces in three directions and keeping some of its better units in a sustained counter-attack at Bakhmut that yielded little. Russia had enough reserves to rotate in airborne regiments by September and generated additional combat power sufficient to launch its own offensive in Avdiivka in October. The Russian offensive in Avdiivka equally failed to achieve a breakthrough, but it demonstrated that Russia had regenerated sufficient combat power to try to retake the initiative, and sufficient reserves to stop a Ukrainian breakthrough that year.

If Ukraine’s summer offensive fell short of its objectives, it was hardly a disaster. Ukraine retained much of the equipment it had been allocated while inflicting significant losses on defending Russian forces. Tactically, it was closer to a draw. The initial attack failed due to a combination of planning choices, force-employment issues, a shortage of enablers and most importantly a lack of a clear fires advantage relative to a well-prepared defence. The West did fail to provide available counters that could have negated some of the Russian advantages, such as long-range strike against Russian helicopter bases. But the narrative that the offensive failed solely because the West failed to provide sufficient equipment to Ukraine lacks explanatory power, especially since Ukraine did not run out of equipment during the offensive and could not employ it at scale from the outset.

In retrospect, what is notable about the offensive is how conventionally it was planned. It assumed an assault could breach Russian lines relatively quickly, and then be exploited with reserve forces. This line of thinking discounted the presence of Russia’s layered defences, persistent drone-based surveillance and panoply of capabilities that could deny manoeuvre. Given that Ukraine lacked a decisive superiority in the overall correlation of forces, the errant assumptions likely stemmed from the inordinate influence of the Western manoeuvrist school of thought, whereby the cognitive impact and shock of a combined-arms assault was supposed to force Russian units to withdraw from the first line, enabling a rapid breach and obviating the need to inflict high levels of attrition to set the conditions for success. In fact, the course of the war indicates that Ukraine and its Western backers did not sufficiently appreciate the importance of attrition as an enabler of manoeuvre, and that of a firepower advantage over combined-arms integration. Manoeuvrist tenets, which projected strong cognitive effects from manoeuvre, did not prove out in Ukraine’s offensive, and indeed have not been validated over the two-year span of the Russia–Ukraine war.

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(artikkeli jatkuu seuraavassa viestissä - LINKKI)
 
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Edellisessä viestissä (LINKKI) alkanut artikkelin lainaus päättyy:

Air superiority and fire control​

The war has played out in a largely air-denied or air-contested environment. Nevertheless, Russian Aerospace Forces have enjoyed greater freedom of action than their Ukrainian counterpart and employed stand-off strikes to some effect. Tactical aviation – namely, American-made F-16s – or a much larger set of long-range strike capabilities are important factors, but by themselves they were unlikely to make the crucial difference. Ukrainian force structure and doctrine are not designed around attainment of air superiority or the need for substantial air-delivered fires, and some of the challenges posed by Russia’s defences did not have obvious air-power solutions.

There is a tendency to treat air power as talismanic. But unstated assumptions about air power or long-range strike are often baked into expectations for what they might achieve. While Ukraine is steadily acquiring F-16 fighter aircraft and training to use them, this transition is a multiyear process. The fighters will eventually help Ukraine employ more Western strike capabilities and contest Russian air power, but having Western aircraft does not secure the ability to attain and maintain air superiority in an air-denied environment.

There is much a military would have to adjust with respect to how air power is employed, its organisational capacity and how operations are planned to effectively integrate air and land operations, and to realise the benefits of air power most associated with US achievements. Presuming sufficient kit would easily translate into that level of operational capability is especially problematic against a military, such as Russia’s, with an extensive network of integrated air defences and a large fleet of tactical aircraft. It is therefore unsurprising and appropriate that current discussions in Ukraine centre less on conventional air superiority and more on the advantages derived from the employment of drones at the tactical level and as part of long-range strike campaigns. This is a productive way to think about the sort of strike-support roles drones can play, and their ability to offset deficits in other capabilities.

The ‘deep battle’ notion, advanced by some, that Ukraine might have attained fire control – that is, the ability to strike critical Russian targets far behind Russian lines to facilitate a breakthrough – had it been able to advance within range of Russian ground lines of communication also seems unconvincing. This technology-centred theory of success made little sense: if it had been possible to achieve deep-battle effects by leveraging long-range strike capabilities, the offensive would not have been necessary in the first place. In the event, fire control via long-range precision strike was not practicable, and the persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, magazine depth and other requirements needed to establish it at longer ranges were not attainable. Furthermore, long-range precision strikes were poorly coordinated with attacks along the front line, further reducing their tactical impact. Where Ukrainian forces excelled was in delegating HIMARS systems to engage Russian artillery and high-value targets close to the front line. This leveraged qualitative superiority in fires to establish some degree of advantage. However, in most battles in Ukraine, each side has been able to range the other’s ground lines of communication, command and control, and forward logistics, with the lines often separated by a few kilometres. With rare exceptions, the combatants could not control the engagement via fires, resulting in attritional warfare that could last weeks or months.

While it makes sense for Ukraine to pursue localised air superiority and contest Russian air power, expectations about how quickly such efforts might produce meaningful results should be low. A long-term strategy should incorporate these efforts, but should not assume that they will be decisive or serve as centrepieces of the approach. Although fire control appears impractical, Ukraine could instead cultivate an expanded long-range strike capability for targeting key supporting elements of the Russian war effort far beyond tactical depths. In particular, low-cost drones in high volumes might prove more useful in degrading the Russian air advantage than in directly contesting it, and could anchor a sustained Ukrainian strike campaign over the course of 2024. They should not be viewed as a substitute for close battle, however. No matter how abundant, long-range strike capability is not likely to force a collapse of Russian positions without another ground offensive. In sum, it is necessary but not sufficient, and no theory of victory should be based on these means alone.

Making attrition work​

The most recent offensive raises the question of whether the West should emphasise a combined-arms, manoeuvre-based approach, or focus instead on helping Ukraine attain advantage via a destruction-based approach, especially given what is likely to be a prolonged attritional phase. The course of the war illustrates that manoeuvre will have to be earned, and that integration and simultaneity – basically, the key virtues of combined-arms operations – are not only difficult to achieve but also unlikely to produce breakthroughs under the conditions prevailing in Ukraine. Rather, the focus needs to be first and foremost on the attritional destruction of Russia’s forces by firepower in both the close and deep battles to pave the way for manoeuvre. Ukraine, in short, needs to embrace a destruction-centred approach for the next stage of the war, which may in time enable manoeuvre to be more successful.

Attrition is a more dependable approach in part because the force quality required to execute combined-arms operations at scale is often difficult to maintain and reconstitute later in a conventional war. The Ukrainian armed forces have had to undergo cycles of reconstituting and rebuilding formations, often after losing more experienced soldiers and leaders to attrition. New units often consist of mobilised personnel, officers from other formations, and those who were promoted in grade, most without any professional military education. The emphasis therefore has to be on the fundamentals to build planning capacity within battalion and brigade staffs. This is required before higher levels of coordination are possible and instilling a major doctrinal evolution into a traditionally fires-centred military is feasible.

Furthermore, Ukraine’s principal problem in the 2023 offensive was not an inability to conduct combined-arms manoeuvre. While it is true the new brigades trained by Western countries struggled to coordinate combat arms, this was ancillary rather than central to the offensive’s failure. Accordingly, it is incorrect to conclude that Ukrainian forces could not succeed because they could not fight like a Western military, or that fighting like a Western military doctrinally requires air superiority, without which success is impossible. In fact, Ukraine made progress by trying to gain better positions, fighting for relative fires advantage that reduced overall losses, and made Russia pay a high price to defend terrain. Fighting like a Western military is not necessarily a recipe for success in this war. As many Ukrainian soldiers have suggested, the operating environment is such that some Western tactics and techniques appear unsuitable or dated.

Restoring Ukraine’s advantage​

In a prior article discussing the course of the war in 2022, we assessed that combined-arms training and precision-strike systems would not prove sufficient to escape attrition in the coming offensive. Assuming Ukraine and the West now accept the unavoidability of a long war, both need to settle on a long-term strategy to effectively defend against Russian offensive operations, reconstitute Ukrainian forces and maintain pressure on the Russian military with the goal of restoring a battlefield advantage to Ukrainian armed forces. The strategy should cast 2024 as a pivotal year, with an eye to restoring the ability to conduct a successful offensive in 2025.

At this point, Russia has several material advantages. It is likely to retain an artillery-fire edge over the course of the year and beyond. Russia will also continue regenerating combat power, recruiting more than 10,000 troops per month. It will probably hold the strategic initiative along much of the 1,000 km front line and expand its strike campaign against Ukraine given increased production of drones and cruise missiles. Moreover, Moscow is now set to spend 6% of GDP on defence – a significant increase – and the real figure may be closer to 8%. Its apparent intent is to overwhelm Ukraine through defence-industrial mobilisation and sustained regeneration of combat forces.

The most effective way for Ukraine to rebuild its advantage is to mount an effective defence in depth, which will reduce Ukraine’s losses and ammunition requirements. At present, Russia holds the defensive advantage, on account of dedicated engineering brigades, machinery and the capacity to fortify quickly, as well as extensive minefields and sophisticated minelaying systems, including those capable of distance mining. A better defence would also permit Ukraine to restructure its force deployments, rotate brigades and free up parts of the military for reconstitution.

Ukraine will also have to replenish its force. Based on our field research, Ukraine’s average soldier appears to be in his 40s, which is ill-suited for certain combat tasks. Ukrainian leadership needs to review policies on the ages of those conscripted. The West can assist by scaling up training programmes, which need to be adjusted on the basis of lessons learned in the 2023 offensive and Ukrainian experience in this war. Within Ukraine, expanded facilities and training ranges will be needed to rotate units off and onto the front line. Further, units that have been on the front lines since the beginning of the war – particularly those at Bakhmut – need rest and recuperation.

More broadly, Ukraine’s military requires recapitalisation. Ukraine and its Western backers need to increase industrial capacity and output of key systems in order to ensure that Ukraine will have the requisite fires advantage. For supporting countries, the challenge is to significantly increase production of artillery ammunition and air-defence interceptors. Our field research indicates that Ukraine will need around 75,000–90,000 artillery shells per month to sustain the war defensively, and more than double that – 200,000–250,000 – for a major offensive. At this stage, the Western coalition depends mostly on US stocks to sustain the lower range of this figure and does not have the ammunition to support a major offensive next year. Ukraine can reduce its requirements for artillery ammunition by significantly increasing production of strike drones, both first-person-view drones for use in close battle and long-range strike drones to target Russian critical infrastructure. To do this, Ukraine will have to resolve several financing, contracting and industrial-capacity issues. The West, for its part, will need to support Ukraine in procuring or developing munitions to use with drones, as such munitions from other sources are in short supply. Ukraine’s indigenous ability to maintain and repair Western armoured fighting vehicles and artillery is growing, and the West should work to advance the localisation of maintenance, parts replacement and production of strike systems.

Naturally, defence and reconstitution by themselves are not enough, and Ukraine will have to be careful about being drawn into costly battles like Bakhmut, which tend to lead to a sunk-costs mentality. These may be politically symbolic, but they trade short-term gain for strategic costs that hamper reconstitution. At this stage of the war, the West is neither expecting nor desirous of fleeting or isolated battlefield victories for the continuation of its support. Instead, Ukraine should plan for and execute strike campaigns – for example, against the Russian Black Sea Fleet, Russian air bases in Crimea or key supporting infrastructure. Heading into 2024, it is clear that the optimal strategy is one that avoids a costly stalemate, or worse, a mounting Russian advantage that leads to Ukraine’s defeat. Both Ukraine and the Western countries involved retain good options, but success will require better alignment on strategy.

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We recognise that much of our analysis represents an incomplete first draft of military history. Other analysts and historians will undoubtedly revise and improve our understanding of this war. But it does seem fairly clear that the war has seen prolonged phases in which the ability to manoeuvre has been earned chiefly through extensive attrition and the destruction of the enemy’s capacity rather than through cognitive effects or effective employment of combined arms. Modern forms of long-range precision strike have helped Ukraine to interdict or suppress Russia’s logistical nodes, but they have not established fire control beyond tactical ranges or circumvented the need for close battle. We appreciate that these results may be due to the specific context of this war, and analysts should be careful in trying to translate observations about the Russia–Ukraine war in particular into lessons learned about the character of contemporary war in general.

While Western countries should continue to help Ukrainian forces improve their overall quality and their ability to scale up combined-arms operations, prevailing conditions in Ukraine still favour attritional and positional approaches rather than those suitable for manoeuvre warfare. The operative factor is attrition, inflicted primarily through artillery and strike drones. The West is therefore best served by focusing on resourcing Ukraine’s fires-centred approach and helping Ukraine scale offensive operations to exploit a fires advantage when it is attained. This may be impossible to achieve via quantity, but it can be done through a combination of means which altogether add up to meaningful superiority in support of an offensive. These two factors should drive investment in drones to offset shortages of artillery ammunition, cheaper precision-strike capabilities, and electronic warfare to help restore mobility to the front line and reduce current Russian advantages in drone systems.

Ukraine’s military leadership appears keen to embrace technological innovation and tactical adaptation, and to rebuild the force’s combat potential. These objectives will take time to achieve, but it is clear that Ukraine’s military recognises the scale of the challenge and the need to move out as soon as possible in 2024. This will be a long war requiring a long-term outlook in strategy, but also timely decision-making. Despite the high stakes, it has become less clear that Washington and European capitals can muster the political will to see Ukraine through this war. The fact remains that Ukraine and the West enjoy the overall advantage in resources, and attrition can prove an important part of their theory of victory.

This article appears in the February–March 2024 issue of Survival: Global Politics and Strategy.

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Author​

Franz-Stefan Gady

@hoanssolo

Associate Fellow for Cyber Power and Future Conflict
 
Viimeksi muokattu:
MSH kirjoitti:
Pointti on siinä, että Moscow Mike valittiin republikaanien äänillä. Demokraatit äänestivät vastaan. Jos puolueet tekisivät yhteistyötä, eivätkä vain kategorisesti äänestäisi toisen puolueen jäsentä vastaan ihan vain toisen puolueen muroihin lorottamisen takia, niin uuden puhemiehen valinnassa ei pitäisi olla mitään hankalaa. Mutta koska yhteistyötä ei enää voida tehdä niin tilanne on solmussa, eikä demokraateilla näytä olevan sen murtamiseen halua yhtään sen enempää kuin republikaaneillakaan.
Klikkaa laajentaaksesi...
Demokraattien edustajainhuoneen johtaja Hakeem Jeffries sanoi tuolloin syksyllä kun valittiin uutta puhemiestä useampaan kertaan, että ovat valmiita kompromissiehdokkaaseen mikäli vain ehdoista päästään sopuun, mutta republikaanit puskivat jääpäisesti omaa ehdokastaan. Toisaalta tuo on järkevää, koska molempien puolueiden tuen varassa oleva puhemies on hyvin heikoilla ja erittäin altis haasteelle tulevissa esivaaleissa ainakin nykyisessä tilanteessa.

Tässä lokakuulta olevassa jutussa selitetään aika hyvin miksi tuollainen kompromissipuhemies ei ole todennäköisesti tapahtumassa:
www.businessinsider.com

Come on, people: there's never going to be a bipartisan coalition running the House

It would be even harder for Republicans to work with Democrats than continuing to work with the far right. Plus, there's the threat of primaries.
www.businessinsider.com www.businessinsider.com
 
Pitkähkö artikkeli jossa selvitetty ryssän Starlink-internetin käytön todenperäisyyttä sekä mm. sitä, mistä antenneja tilataan ja miten liittymät aktivoidaan:

A quick Google search revels dozens of companies selling Starlinks to Russia, some of them advertising it as the 'Starlinks for special military operation'.

1707842806315.png

'They will work unless the war ends.' With @pustota and @legal0ve, we have discovered who is selling Starlinks to Russia, how the accounts are being registered under fake European names, and what can be done about it. Thanks to @Rebel44CZ for the help.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1757398277127798927

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Lainaan viitatun artikkelin tekstin konekäännöksen spoilerin taakse (artikkeli julkaistu 13.2.2024):

"It will work while the war is going on." Who sells Starlink "for SVO"​

3 hour(s) ago

"It will work while the war is going on." Who sells Starlink "for SVO"​

3 hour(s) ago
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The Russian military can actually use the Starlink satellite communication system at the front due to the lack of control on the part of SpaceX over the personal data of clients during registration and the technical impossibility of limiting access to the Internet to only one of the warring parties, Radio Liberty found out after talking with military personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and experts and sellers of "Starlinks for SVO". Starlink supplies to Russia are carried out by dozens of companies that simultaneously import into the Russian Federation household goods of brands that have left Russia - such as cars or washing machines.

On February 8, popular Ukrainian blogger and volunteer Sergei Sternenko published information that the Russian army began to increasingly use Starlink satellite systems at the front, developed by SpaceX, which are officially not available to users from Russia and do not work within the country. Before this, in the vast majority of cases they were used only by the Ukrainian army.

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Sternenko said that the systems themselves are supplied to the Russian army from the United Arab Emirates with accounts pre-activated outside Russia, so they also work in the occupied territories of Ukraine. At the same time, the Starlink website now says that their terminals work only in part of the Russian-controlled regions of Ukraine. “We will try to convey the collected evidence at the highest level,” Sternenko added.

A few days later, the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense announced that Russia was increasing the use of Starlink terminals at the front. Department representative Andrei Yusov said that cases of use of Starlink systems by Russians have been recorded and this phenomenon is becoming widespread. Later, the Main Intelligence Directorate published a radio intercept of a conversation allegedly between two soldiers of the Russian 83rd Air Assault Brigade. In it, one of the servicemen reports on the installation of this system at the position. The 83rd brigade is fighting in the area of Kleshcheevka and Andreevka near Bakhmut. On February 13, Ukrainian intelligence announced that it had intercepted another conversation between Russian military personnel, in which they discussed the purchase of Starlink systems and components for them from Arab countries for 200 thousand rubles. “The Arabs bring everything: wires, Wi-Fi router,” says one of them. Radio Liberty cannot promptly verify the authenticity of these recordings.


Starlink terminals at Russian positions have already been captured on video shot by Ukrainian drones. Photos with boxes, which allegedly contain unpacked Starlinks, are also published by the Russian military themselves.

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SpaceX said it does not do business with the Russian authorities or the Russian army. They noted that Starlink satellite systems are inactive in both Russia and the UAE and are not supplied to these countries.

“If SpaceX receives information that Starlink terminals are being used by sanctioned or unauthorized parties, we will investigate and take action to deactivate the terminals,” the company said in a statement. SpaceX owner Elon Musk also responded to the accusations. He stated that the information that Starlink terminals are being sold to Russia is a lie. According to Musk, the company is not aware of systems being sold to Russia indirectly or directly.

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Commenting on the statements of the Main Intelligence Directorate, Vladimir Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov noted that Russia does not purchase the Starlink system through official channels. “This is not a certified system with us, therefore, it cannot be supplied and is not supplied officially. Accordingly, we cannot use it officially in any way. Here, perhaps, we should not intrude into the discussions between the Kyiv regime and the entrepreneur Musk,” said Peskov.

"Starlink stretched Bakhmut's defenses"​

Musk, who now advocates reducing military aid to Ukraine, said during a recent call with Republican senators that his companies have "probably done more to undermine Russia than anyone else." Indeed, the significance of the Starlink terminals, which have been supplied to the Ukrainian military since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion, is very great.

Starlink terminals in the Armed Forces of Ukraine are used on the front line primarily for stable communication between various units, doctors and headquarters. Ukrainian troops are also experimenting with installing Starlink antennas on large attack drones, making them difficult to jam or jam with electronic warfare. But the primary function of the terminals at the front is stable communication. A Ukrainian army serviceman, in a conversation with Radio Liberty, noted that “Starlink greatly stretched the defense of Bakhmut.”

A Ukrainian military man installs an antenna for the Starlink system, Kremennaya, Donetsk region of Ukraine. January 6, 2023

A Ukrainian military man installs an antenna for the Starlink system, Kremennaya, Donetsk region of Ukraine. January 6, 2023

It is indeed practically impossible to jam the terminals using electronic warfare, as noted by two of our interlocutors, servicemen of the Ukrainian army. “There is an opinion that Starlink can be jammed if you are above it in the air, but this has not been confirmed. Just in case, we monitor the correct location of the antennas and additional protection from electronic warfare,” noted one of them.

In some areas of the front, the Russian army has had Starlink for a long time, says another serviceman. Thus, fighters of the Wagner PMC used Starlink during the assault on Bakhmut in January 2023 - they found some systems in positions abandoned by Ukrainian troops, and some, according to Radio Liberty’s interlocutor, were brought from Africa.

Both military officers agree that the massive use of Starlink terminals by the Russian army will not fundamentally change the situation on the front line. “They will have a stable and high-quality connection. There will be an additional load on the network, but this is not critical,” notes a serviceman of the Ukrainian territorial defense.

“It’s a miracle that the Russians didn’t think of this before.”​

Independent researcher Jakub Yanovsky , who collaborated with the Bellingcat and Oryx projects and is well acquainted with the principles of satellite communications, writes on the social network X that one “cell” of Starlink network coverage includes a fairly significant territory and SpaceX can only approximately determine where that one is located or other terminal.

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According to Jakub Yanovsky, in order to avoid Starlink coverage of Russian positions, SpaceX would have to turn off the terminals used by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

“This is all public information - it’s a miracle that the Russians didn’t think of this sooner. They have good reasons not to use Starlink, but low-level military personnel may not care,” Yanovsky adds , referring to the theoretical possibility of Ukraine or the United States intercepting data. received by the Russian military via Starlink.

Another solution to the problem could be a “white list” of terminals available to the Ukrainian army - so that no other Starlink terminals work at the front. This, however, will require regular and prompt collection of information from all units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (which do not always receive terminals centrally) - both about the terminals at their disposal and about terminals lost during combat operations.

Magician and fraudulent shops​

The lack of official Starlink supplies does not prevent parallel “gray” imports. The American satellite communications system ends up in Russia in the same way as luxury cars and household appliances from brands that have left the Russian Federation. The intermediaries involved in such deliveries are often small entrepreneurs with experience in network marketing and online trading.

At the request “buy Starlink in Russia” you can find several dozen sites offering delivery and connection of equipment in the Russian Federation: the price range is approximately from 200 000 to 400 000 rubles per device. Basically we are talking about using the system on yachts in the ocean - where there is Starlink coverage. Some projects, for example the website Topmachines.ru, directly offer the supply of an American Internet system “for the SVO.”

The cost of one Starlink set from Topmashin starts at 220 000 rubles (approximately 2200 US dollars), the subscription fee is 100 dollars per month. “With the Internet from Starlink you get complete anonymity, protection from electronic warfare, access to any sites. This model is not tracked, it is safe in the north,” says the website. The user’s personal account is created “in another country,” and the site owners offer to pay for the subscription fee “through us.”

Topmachiny is engaged not only in the supply of Starlink: for them, this is, apparently, a relatively new business. Although the first videos about the sale of an Internet system to Russia appeared on the project’s YouTube channel back in October 2022, a separate channel for them was created only a year later, in October 2023. The main business of the project is the supply of custom-made cars from the UAE to Russia; TopMachines also offers investments and exchange of rubles for Emirati dirhams.

The Topmashin website and the project’s social networks do not indicate a legal entity, only contact numbers and names - Alexey and Victoria (this is typical for all projects offering Starlink in Russia). In one of the few public reviews left for work with the project, perhaps by its owners, it is stated that Alexey and Victoria are brother and sister, he works in Dubai, she works in the Russian Volgograd.

Using phone numbers and publicly accessible Radio Liberty databases, it was possible to establish that the administrators of Topmashin are indeed brother and sister, Victoria and Alexey Ovchinnikov. They were born in the early 1990s in Germany in the cities where the Western Group of Soviet Forces was stationed, and spent their childhood in Blagoveshchensk. Victoria later lived in the city of Volzhsky in the Volgograd region and in Torzhok in the Tver region. Together with her partner Alexey Svirsky, Victoria Ovchinnikova managed the online clothing store VK-mystery.

Victoria Ovchinnikova

Victoria Ovchinnikova

Users on the Internet left many negative reviews for this store, accusing the project owners of fraud in sending goods and non-return of money - there were hundreds of such cases in Torzhok , Volgograd and other regions. Alexey Svirsky was convicted of fraud in 2010; in addition to an online clothing store, he was involved in cryptocurrency mining equipment under the UPMiner brand. We were unable to establish whether he is involved in the project to supply Starlink to Russia.

Victoria Ovchinnikova, in addition to the Topmachiny project, owns an operating online store of magical amulets, offers consultations on Tarot cards, mentoring and training for “unlocking magical abilities.” Two years ago, she participated in the Miss Notebook Volzhsky 2022 beauty contest and stated in an interview that her hobby is helping people. “This is both my professional activity and my hobby,” she told Notepad.

Her brother Alexey Ovchinnikov, apparently the second administrator of Topmashin, judging by the content of his telegram subscriptions, really spends a lot of time in the UAE.
In correspondence with RS, a Topmashin representative said that the terminals arrive in Russia “fully ready with an account registered in Poland.” He clarified that the project registers all accounts “in its own name.” “These are all originally our plates, that is, it is not as if an account was registered under someone else,” he added.

"Left European Data"​

Another Starlink seller in Moscow explained to Radio Liberty how this works - this project also offers supplies “for SVO.” According to the seller, accounts are registered with random European first and last names and “left European data from the data generator”, since when creating an account in the system, confirmation in the form of a passport is not required. The only important thing is to have a valid bank card from one of the international payment systems - the company is ready to help with this.

Starlink satellite communications kit smuggled into Iran

Starlink satellite communications kit smuggled into Iran

“We have a one-month warranty on the equipment, it works for everyone, we create an account for Europeans, they are not blocked, we pay with our foreign cards. In the “DPR”, “LPR” and Crimea it will work 100% while the fighting is going on, since the opposite side too uses them. What will happen when the war ends is unknown." The fact that Starlink only checks a bank card during registration is confirmed by Jakub Janowski.

Radio Liberty's "Topmashiny" said that they register accounts for "Russian" Starlink systems in Poland.

Since when using the terminal, payment is made through the seller’s bank card, the buyer will not have access to his personal account, says Radio Liberty’s interlocutor involved in the sale of Starlinks.

“There were many cases where people started trying to order Starlinks from our cards and so on, so we reserve access for ourselves and set a password for Wi-Fi upon request.” If the buyer has his own bank card, issued, for example, in Kazakhstan, he can apply for access to himself (although the “left” first and last name will still be indicated in his personal account).

Our interlocutor claims that the terminals he sells were brought not from the UAE, but from Europe, but does not specify which country, citing the fact that he is only engaged in sales. The price of one terminal in this company is 250 000 rubles, subscriptions to network services are about 14 000. Transferring goods from hand to hand is possible in the Russian capital, but the terminal can also be sent by courier service.

Jakub Yanovsky writes that it is not possible to control the process of purchasing Starlink systems - as is the case with other civilian goods used by both sides in the Russian-Ukrainian war, for example, motors for drones .

“As for export control, this is civilian equipment that is freely sold in dozens of countries (even in random supermarkets and electronics stores, where it can be bought for cash), and its purchase is not regulated in any way,” the expert states.

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The test was prepared with the participation of the Sistema investigative project.
 
Viimeksi muokattu:
Viron presidentin näkemys.

yle.fi

Viron presidentti Alar Karis Jyväskylässä: Ukrainan tappiolla olisi radikaali vaikutus turvallisuuteemme

Presidentti Karis piti puheen luennolla, joka kunnioittaa presidentti Martti Ahtisaaren rauhantyötä.
yle.fi yle.fi


Ukrainalaiset voivat voittaa, mutta rauhalla ja vapaudella on aina hintansa.

Virossa on laskettu, että Ukraina tulee voittamaan, jos jokainen Euroopan maa antaa sille 0,25 prosenttia bruttokansantuotteestaan tulevina vuosina.

– Se ei ole suuri määrä, sanoo Karis.

Ukrainan tappiolla olisi radikaali vaikutus turvallisuuteemme ja hyvinvointiimme, toteaa Karis.
 
Aivan oikea valinta toistaiseksi vain puolustaa niin kauan kun putte väkeä lappaa. Aika juoksee puten tiimalasissa ja jos oikeasti saadaan haitattua öljyn vientiä niin sitä nopeammin talouden tilanne menee tolalle, missä puten on pakko alkaa himmailla. Sitten kun Ukraina ei suostukaan edelleenkään neuvottelemaan niin alkaa putte olla ihmeissään.
 
Muistan että tällaisesta järjestelmästä ja sellaisen hyödyllisyydestä / tarpeellisuudesta oli pohdintaa tässäkin ketjussa, ainakin sen jälkeen kun ryssä rupesi käyttämään Shahed-136/131 droneja eli syksyllä 2022.

Mukava nähdä että sellainen on käytössä, ainakin jossakin muodossa. Asiana tässä ei tietysti ole mitään uutta, samaa on tehty ennenkin mutta moderni teknologia tuo tähänkin oman lisäsävynsä.

Mitä seuraavaksi, tykistön kolmiomittaus suuliekkien perusteella? Taitavat tehdä sitäkin jo tai oikeammin tehneet sitä jo kauan, koska droneja on niin paljon ilmassa. Tuskin ehdottoman tarkka geopaikannus mutta kenties riittävän tarkka.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1757402192271540320

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https://www.twz.com/land/thousands-of-networked-microphones-are-tracking-drones-in-ukraine

Ukraine Using Thousands Of Networked Microphones To Track Russian Drones​

Ukraine is using acoustic sensors to detect and hunt down incoming threats, and now the U.S. military wants to test the system.

BY JOSEPH TREVITHICK

|PUBLISHED FEB 12, 2024 10:03 PM EST

https://www.twz.com/land/thousands-of-networked-microphones-are-tracking-drones-in-ukraine

Ukraine Using Thousands Of Networked Microphones To Track Russian Drones​

Ukraine is using acoustic sensors to detect and hunt down incoming threats, and now the U.S. military wants to test the system.

BY JOSEPH TREVITHICK

|PUBLISHED FEB 12, 2024 10:03 PM EST

View Joseph Trevithick's Articles

FranticGoat


Ukraine is using a network made up of thousands of acoustic sensors across the country to help detect and track incoming Russian kamikaze drones, alert traditional air defenses in advance, and also dispatch ad hoc drone hunting teams to shoot them down. This is according to the U.S. Air Force's top officer in Europe who also said the U.S. military is now looking to test this capability to see if it might help meet its own demands for additional ways to persistently monitor for, and engag,e drone threats.

Gen. James Hecker, head of U.S. Air Forces in Europe (USAFE), as well as Air Forces Africa (AFAFRICA) and NATO's Allied Air Command, provided the details about Ukraine's acoustic sensor network and related air and missile defense issues at a press roundtable that The War Zone and other outlets attended earlier today. This gathering took place on the sidelines of this year's Air & Space Forces Association Warfare Symposium, which opened today.

Members of a Ukrainian drone hunting team in the Mykolayiv region show off a modified UAZ-452 armed with two PKT machine guns on an improvised mount. <em>Vladimir Shtanko/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</em>

Members of a Ukrainian drone hunting team in the Mykolayiv region show off a modified UAZ-452 armed with two PKT machine guns on an improvised mount. Vladimir Shtanko/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images


"At the unclassified level, Ukraine's done some pretty sophisticated things to get after [a] persistent ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance]" picture of "low altitude objects," Hecker explained. This now includes an acoustic sensor system that makes use of microphones designed to pick up and amplify ambient noise, he added.

"Think if you have a series of sensors, think of your cell phone, okay, with power to it, so it doesn't die, right? And then you put a microphone to kind of make the acoustics louder of one-way UAVs that are going overhead," Hecker explained. "And you have … 6,000 of these things all over the country. They've been successful in being able to pick up the one-way UAVs like Shahed 136s and those kinds of things."

A Russian Shahed-136 drone flying over Ukraine. <em>Photo by SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP via Getty Images</em>

A Russian Shahed-136 drone flying over Ukraine. Photo by SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP via Getty Images

Kamikaze drones like the Shahed-136 may have relatively small engines, but they still produce a significant and often terrifying amount of noise, as you hear in the videos below.

The Ukrainians have been able to use the acoustic sensor data "to be able to track them and then eventually put that together, get that picture out to a mobile ... team that is further out, that now shoots it down with AAA [anti-aircraft artillery], [which] they train a guy in six hours how to utilize," Hecker added.

How the acoustic sensor information is disseminated is unclear, but this could very well involve leveraging an existing ad hoc drone spotting network that Ukraine has had in place for some time now that allows volunteers to post alerts via the Telegram online messaging service.

Hecker's pointed mention of AAA (anti-aircraft artillery), a term used to describe various types of anti-aircraft guns, reflects broader comments he made today about the cost-effectiveness of those weapons against drones. We will come back to that one later.

Most of Ukraine's counter-drone teams rely heavily on improvised weapon systems typically consisting of various types of machine guns and automatic cannons mounted on different types of light vehicles. Their means of spotting and tracking drones themselves, especially at night, are typically limited to very localized capabilities like night vision and thermal optics, laser pointers, and searchlights.

Details about the Ukrainian acoustic sensor network have been "briefed to several people now, including the Missile Defense Agency," Hecker added. "We're looking at doing some tests to see if that's something we can export out into NATO."

Hecker said that this kind of acoustic sensor capability could have applications outside of NATO, too, and potentially against other categories of aerial threats beyond drones. It's worth noting that before the widespread adoption of radar, the U.S. military and other armed forces around the world used various types of systems designed to detect incoming aircraft based on their acoustic signature. By the end of World War II, such systems had largely fallen into disuse.

A U.S. Coast Artillery Corps aircraft sound locator system, at left, as well as a searchlight and transport truck, somewhere in the United States in 1932. <em>U.S. Coast Artillery Corps</em>

A U.S. Coast Artillery Corps aircraft sound locator system, at left, as well as a searchlight and transport truck, somewhere in the United States in 1932. U.S. Coast Artillery Corps

However, many modern aerial threats, including small, low-flying drones and cruise missiles, and stealthy crewed and uncrewed aircraft and missiles, present significant challenges to even current-generation radars. Gen. Hecker first mentioned the U.S. military's interest in Ukraine's acoustic sensor network at the roundtable today while talking about challenges NATO is facing in maintaining a persistent ISR picture when it comes to things like kamikaze drones and cruise missiles.

"What it does, you know, when it's airborne, it will give us a persistent picture, ISR picture, down to low altitude, where many of these one-way UAVs and cruise missiles operate at," Hecker said about the E-7A Wedgetail airborne early warning and control aircraft that the Air Force and NATO are in the process of acquiring. "And it has a pretty good capability in the range that it can detect those type of threats."

"Unfortunately, they're [the E-7s] not coming off the line starting tomorrow," he continued. "So we have to look for ... interim solutions."

A rendering of a future U.S. Air Force E-7A Wedgetail airborne early warning and control aircraft. <em>USAF</em>

A rendering of a future U.S. Air Force E-7A Wedgetail airborne early warning and control aircraft. USAF

Acoustic sensors like the ones that Ukraine is now employing could be one such interim solution, and one that is also substantially cheaper to implement than something like a fleet of E-7s.

Hecker also mentioned tethered aerostats with "a payload on it that has the capacity to detect these one-way UAVs" as something that he was hoping would be "delivered" within six months to a year. "And now you get that for a long time, right? … it can stay up pretty much nonstop unless the winds get really struggling, and you may have to reel it down for a little bit."

It's not immediately clear whether he was referring to a capability the U.S. military is planning to deploy in Europe or somewhere else, or something that might be happening elsewhere within NATO. The U.S. government did just recently approve a possible sale of aerostat-based aerial surveillance systems to Poland, which you can read more about here.

However it is done, "if we can get this persistent air picture, if we can get that then we can predict how fast they're going [and] what heading they're on," Hecker noted. "Then we can use things that get us on the right side of the cost curve, like AAA, ... something that we haven't probably talked about in a long time. But [it is] very cost efficient using AAA [to] take these things [like kamikaze drones] down."

"I think you'll see this proliferate more and more, which makes the importance of coming up with a low-cost solution to taking these things down" even more pronounced, according to Hecker. "I'm working hard with industry to ... come up with a solution that puts us on the right side of the cost curve. So we're not taking a $700,000 missile and shooting down a $5,000 drone."

Hecker specifically cited the use of long-range kamikaze drones by Iranian-backed groups, including the Houthis in Yemen, against U.S. forces on land and at sea across the Middle East in recent weeks as examples of how this threat is already expanding in scale and scope. Just on January 28, a kamikaze drone notably killed three U.S. service members at a forward base called Tower 22 in Jordan near the border with Syria.

A satellite image of Tower 22 in Jordan. <em>Google Earth</em>

A satellite image of Tower 22 in Jordan. Google Earth

The Houthis have also been launching kamikaze drones, as well as ballistic and cruise missiles, at targets in Israel and foreign warships and commercial vessels in and around the Red Sea.

Hecker even noted that the growing use of kamikaze drones themselves has caught the attention of the U.S. military. He also highlighted unspecified "things to distract an IADS [integrated air defense system] that [are] relatively cheap," when asked about other capabilities being employed in Ukraine now that could be of interest to American forces. It's unclear whether this comment about decoy capabilities refers to ones the Ukrainians, the Russians, or both have been employing in the conflict, a topic The War Zone has been following closely. The general might have even been referring to the use of kamikaze drones as decoys, an adjacent role that many such designs would be well suited for as we have highlighted in the past. Just using the Shaheds to prove routes to target areas, and stimulating enemy air defenses along the way, so that higher-end systems, like cruise missiles, can be sent after them in a more survivable manner is a known tactic.

It is important to remember that, as The War Zone routinely highlights, the threat posed by various tiers of drones to targets on and off traditional battlefields has been real for years now and only continues to grow. The U.S. military continues to largely play catch-up to this reality.

Perhaps Ukraine's 'back to the future' acoustic sensor system may turn out to be new near-term way for the U.S. military to move forward in addressing the drone threat, as well as providing a more persistent ISR picture for air defenders overall, especially when it comes to small and low-flying targets.

Contact the author: [email protected]
 
Kustavi kirjoitti:
Se on kyllä tämän sodan suurin virhe jos siinä ei olisi ollut mitään muuta estettä kuin Ukrainan oma pyyntö. Ei helvetti. Jollain velalla ei ole mitään merkitystä tässä vaiheessa kun sota on päällä, avustuksia tulee ja lainojen takaisinmaksuja voidaan lykätä vaikka kuinka pitkälle. Kyllä Ukrainakin on asioita töpännyt aika pahasti perkele.
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moikkari kirjoitti:
Biden ei voi päättää Lend-leasen käyttämisestä.

Ukraina voi, ja he eivät halunneet käyttää, koska se lisää Ukrainan valtion velkaa.

"In reality, lend-lease never worked at all, because the United States already gave Ukraine weapons, and without any payment and conditions, which was purely economically more profitable for Kiev than lend-lease", - this is how the White House explained the non-use of lend-lease, reports "Country.ua»

Omasta mielestäni Ukrainan olisi pitänyt käyttää sitä täysin surutta, koska lopulta ne velat olisi kuitattu. Nyt olisi armottomasti materiaalia Ukrainalla jolla iskeä.

vpk.name

"Lend-lease didn't work." Why did the US launch a program of assistance to Ukraine and did not use it

Country.ua: a non-working lend-lease law for Ukraine expired in the USA <br>In the United States, the fiscal year 2023 ended on September 30, and during the period of its validity, Kiev did not receive anything under the lend-lease - other mechanisms were used to help Ukraine by the United...
vpk.name vpk.name
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Kustavi kirjoitti:
No samaa olen miettinyt. Eihän tässä ole mitään järkeä koko hommassa. Luulisi länneltä löytyvän rahaa vaikka 100 miljardia näin alkuun jolla Ukraina voisi tilata suoraan tehtailta kalustoa ja ammusta tai sitten suoraan ostaisi muilta mailta. Kyllä myyjiä löytyy kun rahaa lyödään tiskiin.

Tässä haisee nyt kyllä joku, mutten tiedä että mikä.

Vai onko lännen varastot, pois lukien jenkit, niin totaalisen tyhjänä ettei saada murkulaa ja kalustoa myytyä vaikka siitä maksettaisiin kunnolla. En tiedä.
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Väitän että suurin syy oli se että Ukrainan luottoluokitus on jo nyt roskaluokassa. Velan saanti arkisiin menoihin on haastavaa ja kallista. Lend lease tyyppinen laina ei luokitusta ainakaan paranna.
Pitää muistaa että Ukrainalla on myös muita velvollisuuksia kuin sotilasmenot hoidettavanaan.
Toisekseen Ukrainahan on voinut jo nyt tilata mm. Eu:ssa velaksi mitä vaan (korjatkaa jos väärässä) mutta meidän tuotanto on aivan helvetin hidasta. Sen näkee 155mm murkuluissa, ceasar tykkien valmistus määrissä ja mm. siinä että Ukraina tilasi alle 20 kpl 155mm boxeria Saksasta 2022 ja saa ne ehkä vuoden 2024 lopussa.
 
Antares kirjoitti:
Nyt kun kuultu taas vaihtoehtoisia näkemyksiä kuten "tappaminen täytyy saada loppumaan" tai "Ukrainan tukeminen vain pitkittää sotaa" yms. niin on hyvä hetki muistella menneitä ja näitä rauhankyyhkyjä 80 vuoden takaa:

Katso liite: 93039

https://twitter.com/x/status/1757429021179281592
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Pitkässä historian kaaressa Trumpin MAGA ei kyllä paljoa eroa ensimmäisen maailmansodan jälkeisestä isolationismista, joka päättyi vasta 7.12.1941 Japanin hyökättyä Tyynellämerellä.
 
Tästä on kuulunut aikaisemminkin, taisipa olla juuri vuoden 2023 loppupuolella:

Putin's proposal for a ceasefire in Ukraine, aiming to freeze the conflict, was allegedly rejected by the United States, according to three Russian sources. The proposal suggested maintaining the current conflict lines without ceding any Ukrainian territory controlled by Russia.

Contacts between intermediaries in late 2023 and early 2024 failed when the U.S. didn't want to engage in talks that did not involve Ukraine. A U.S. official denied official contact but acknowledged potential "Track II" conversations among non-government Russians.

https://reuters.com/world/europe/putins-suggestion-ukraine-ceasefire-rejected-by-united-states-sources-say-2024-02-13/

1707849688054.png

https://twitter.com/x/status/1757473428678799669

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Kaikki osapuolet kiistivät että tällaisesta olisi ollut puhetta. Ehkä niin tai ehkä ei. JOS tässä on jotain perää, niin kyseessä voisi olla ryssä koepallo eli mitä voisivat saada ns. ilmaiseksi. Toisaalta kyseessä voisi olla ns. Minsk 3 -sopimus eli ostetaan aikaa vetää henkeä ennen kuin jatketaan hyökkäämistä. Toisaalta nyt kun Yhdysvaltain tuen jatkuminen on kuuma peruna, tämän väitteen julkituominen tässä tilanteessa voi olla ryssän yritys ruokkia näitä "rauha meidän aikanamme" juttuja.

Niin tai näin, JOS tämän ottaa vakavasti ja sanasta sanaan, niin Putin ei tarjoa tällaista hyvää hyvyyttään. Kenties ajatus oli saavuttaa jonkinlainen voitto ennen "presidentinvaaleja"? Tai kenties armeijan saavutukset vuonna 2023 olivat niin laihat, että jotain tällaista oli pakko kokeilla? Kenties ei ole näköpiirissä että kykenisivät valtaamaan merkittävän suuria uusia alueita, vaikka väitteiden mukaan tavoitteena olisi Donetskin ja Luhanskin alueiden valtaaminen vuoden 2024 aikana?

Kenties joku on kyennyt laskemaan, mihin suuntaan varastojen tilanne on menossa ja tämä asettaa aikatauluun painetta?
 
Sinun täytyy kirjautua vastataksesi.
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